The Federal Emergency Management Agency is supposed to help communities deal with disaster, but it seems bent on making recovery more difficult for greater New Orleans and other coastal communities.

Local governments, schools or hospitals that got aid after Hurricane Katrina or other storms will get substantially less help from the agency in a future disaster, according to a May 29 FEMA memo.

If FEMA paid an insurance deductible in the past, it will deduct that amount from disaster aid in the future. Given the exorbitant deductibles post-Katrina, the burden eventually could be too much for some institutions to survive.

To make matters worse, FEMA didn't discuss the policy or its ramifications beforehand and didn't announce it publicly. So, in the midst of hurricane season, this community and hundreds of others from Texas to Maine find themselves more vulnerable than they should be.

That is shameful, and President Bush ought to put a halt to the policy.

FEMA, which took the same stance last summer before revoking the policy, says it is simply trying to ensure that federal taxpayers are protected from multiple claims. That sounds reasonable, but the effects could be disastrous for coastal communities.

In the post-Katrina insurance market, local governments and nonprofits are facing dramatic increases in deductibles, which could mean that in another disaster they would have to pay for tens of millions of dollars worth of damage before being eligible for FEMA aid.

The rule, FEMA says, is not new. It's merely a reiteration of a longstanding policy, agency officials say.

That is difficult to swallow, though. FEMA hadn't described its policy that way in the past. "We probably weren't as articulate in explaining this in previous versions of the fact sheet," an agency spokesman said last week.

Articulate? FEMA didn't bother to try to explain the policy at all. The agency didn't hold public discussions and didn't immediately post the memo on its own Web site.

How were groups that will be affected by the policy supposed to know that it existed? When a hurricane hit, and they started trying to get recovery aid?

If allowed to stand, FEMA's deductible policy will have serious implications not only in this region, but across the nation. After Tropical Storm Fay this week, communities that were damaged by a previous storm could find themselves in a financial bind under this policy.

Applying the policy in New Orleans would be especially offensive since the vast majority of the damage here was caused by the failure of federally built levees during Katrina.

President Bush describes New Orleans as "one of America's most beloved cities" in remarks prepared for his visit here today. "Together, we are working to make sure that New Orleans comes back -- even stronger, safer and more vibrant than it was before the storm."

Those are heart-warming sentiments, and the president has demonstrated his sincerity. He can help again by rescuing us from FEMA.